Scud run brings down Cherokee

What reportedly happened: The private pilot, 61, did not possess an instrument rating. He was last issued a medical certificate dated Sept. 27, 2007. At that time, he reported his total flight time as 2,900 hours. At the time of the accident, his last medical certificate had expired.

He had disqualifying heart disease that had not been reported to or evaluated by the FAA.

The pilot’s recent flight experience and the airplane’s maintenance history could not be determined due to the unavailability of current logbooks.

The weather at the time of the accident was deteriorating from VFR to IFR. The airplane was reported missing and GPS data showed that it descended below 1,700 feet MSL 11 nautical miles south-southwest of the accident site. The airplane crashed in rising terrain at an elevation of about 1,353 feet MSL while on a north-northeasterly heading. The airplane configuration and the wreckage path were consistent with an impact while the airplane was in cruise flight.

Probable cause: The pilot’s decision to attempt to maintain visual flight by descending below an area of deteriorating forecast weather to an altitude that did not provide adequate terrain clearance.

Comments

Boasts he “will deal only in the Plain Truth”
vs
The plain truth is that RHH’s only two argument anchors
(pilot age 61 without a current medical)
for his fevered opposition to a “driver license+self-certification w/training course=medical” restricted to day, VFR, simple acft private ops
were declared by the coroner, the FAA, the insurance carrier,
and most significantly the NTSB to be completely irrelevant
to the probable cause of
CEN11FA263
They had nothing to do with it.
An honorable man would admit error, apologize, and retract.
RHH doubles down and dances on the grave.

2)
RHH = Delusional

Without citing a single example or fully (being ESL)
comprehending my polysyllabic prose,
RHH writes I am
“not even skilled in English grammar….”

Correction deflection…..you blew the bullshit that you’ve been spewing for the past four days out of your asshole bucko……lolololol…..nice try….is that all ya’ got, nimrod? You’ve been pounding doors and table tops in foamin’ fury……Give it up, you’re done…..

Fritzie…boobiemann……you won’t get off the hook so easy….you’re living by your keyboard…..LOLOL…foamin’ at the mouth to pound away at those keys…it’s gettin’ to ya’ for sure…….so again, stow it, you’re a loser, not even skilled in English grammar….how’d you ever make it out of reform school?….we’re (not including you) waitin’ on the next Subject out here and will deal only in the Plain Truth…….no zoup for you boobie….

Jesus christ, Rudy, you are simply immune to facts aren’t you? The AME evaluation portion of the medical YOU need to worry about (mental health) is fortunately cursory but might get you busted anyway due to the severity of your denial = now approaching psychotic break status. And evidence of cognitive/emotional disturbances (¿“blah blah whoop wa”?). TIA?

Visual deficits, too. Weren’t you able to read the big print in Meg’s headline?
“SCUD RUN”!
No more, no less, said it all.
Beginning AND end of story.

You continue to relentlessly and unapologetically cite CEN11FA263 as your foundational classic geezer/no medical anti-Sport Pilot and anti-EAA Exemption Petition rationale when the geezer part is fallacious and the clerically acknowledged “no medical in pocket” and “some heart disease” portions were both declared by the coroner, the FAA, his insurance carrier, and now the NTSB to be completely irrelevant.

He was just 61. Scarcely one of your “seniors that fly… that die falling out of the sky” or “old dudes that crash and burn….way too old”. I guess you’ve been away but back home (for you, right? C’mon — admit it.) last month the Max Planck Institute in Rostock declared 72 is the new 30, relatively speaking, he was barely old enough to solo.

But you’re not wowing the dummköpfen down at the Ratskeller München here, Rudy. FAR from it. GANews readers know this was NOT a “Cherokee”… this was a 300 horsepower, 160 max cruise, Lycoming IO540-KG5D-powered, four thousand pound T- tail LANCE II…not ideal tree-and-hill-dodging equipment.

This accident airplane and body count are identical and the circumstances similar to the 1999 JFK Junior crash. Are you now gonna ground every 38 year old? Every socialite? Every magazine publisher? Every descendant of a President? Every lawyer? OK…don’t answer that last one since you will just say “no” to avoid grounding yourself… having demonstrated an amorally enthusiastic defense of an indefensible position even after your last crate of credibility left on a DC-8-70 freighter for CargoCitySouth, Frankfurt-am-Main (stopover in Iceland, Captain age 64) hours ago.

And apparently I need to repeat the flight conditions: tropics to cheeseland in a day, no weather briefing, no instrument rating, only 20 hours flown that year, dark night marginal-and-deteriorating visual meteorological conditions. Same stupid shit (why did you apostrophize that, Church Lady?) that 30 year olds with fresh medicals tragically try and fail at daily somewhere. Just as you have utterly failed to make a single, valid point but generated bemused awe at your ignorant obstinacy.

Not quite Katzbo, I’m wayyyy ALIVE…..that irresponsible flyboy is DEAD……You waste wayyy too much verbiage……worthless at that…..you are to stick to flying kites where you would do the least amount of damage……

P.S. There’s your category that you won’t need to see the AME for, rookie! (Hide that moonshine you’re chuggin’ before you go to see the man for your med cert. (which is expired for sure). You do want to pass the labs, right? Next Subject!!

Woweee again Fritzie Kat……You can keep motormouthin’ all you care to…on something……anything…..meanwhile…….just keep on a trollin’…….keep on flyin’ that ‘keyboard’ (THAT is ALL you really fly, boy!). Now run along and fetch your ‘palms’ (greased one’s that is)…once again…NEXT Subject!!!!!!

Dear Ageist Rudy Heinrich,
I appreciate your admitting you lied out of your ass by trying to fool readers into thinking that accident had anything to do with pilot age or medical issues. I regret you didn’t have the common decency to just STFU and go away with your tail between your legs afterwards. Your demonstrated religious certainty, dishonesty and poor judgment are what causes aviation accidents…not age or medical self-certification.
Time to cut the crap. You don’t want to save lives and you don’t want to save anyone money. You want to HANG ON to what av-related income you have which is somehow placed at risk by a no-medical private… or you just don’t like geezers. Neither matters BECAUSE THE NEAR DECADE OF SPORT PILOT EXPERIENCE PROVES that medical self-certification for pilots in VFR recreational flying with basic aircraft demonstrated equivalent (and acceptable/minimal) levels of medical incapacitation with certified currently “doctor-approved” pilots. As does a century of “no medical” glider experience.
And for more anecdotal examples, at my airpark alone we have two ( count’ em – two) 90 year old pilots… one wowing onlookers weekly with his gyrocopter prowess and another flying every few days around the county in his Taylorcraft… which he handprops unaided. And yes, two octogenarians who already recognized they are no longer fit to do so. (PS Chuck Y is scarcely a rigorously “by the book” pilot.)
I would hopefully close (unless you shamelessly return) by adding that from your ESL writing issues it appears you are of foreign origin., We have these American ideals of freedom, independence, and personal responsibility here which you would be well advised to understand and appreciate more before striving to crush them.

Wowee Fritzie!..Two more seniors that fly…alas there are wayyyy more that die falling out of the sky preppie….self-med certs. NOT Gonna happen pilgrim…just gave you the reality reasons….give it up and get with the program…at least as you claim for ’40’…(you must me some kind of libby New England troll wannabe)….

Welcome to “Rudy Reality”:
1. the cause of CEN11FA263 was pilot too old and no medical certificate
2. Sport Pilot and gliders do not exist
3. I’m a liberal New England troll

All, like Rudy, 100% bullshit

Though there is nothing wrong with New England other than it sucks for flying. I’m a redneck and it will be sunny and high 80s here most of next week. There IS something wrong with ESL foreign nationals like Rudy telling Americans how to regulate ourselves.

I think Rudy labels as a “troll” anyone who calls him on his broad brush bullshit… and expect that happens a lot. Kinda surprised “My Favorite Aryan” hasn’t pointed out minority pilots have more accidents and we should therefore certificate (as with Der Fatherland) only whites.

Not sure how “liberal” became an insult anyway as I expect most liberals share my conservative love of “freedom and independence” and Rudy is the one demanding more government regulation/enforcement. I guess I have a few letters in common with liberals being libertarian/conservative.

I no where dispute that senior pilots – despite their experience and reasoned temperament – have accidents. As anyone attending safety seminars or OSH can see, the average age of U.S. pilots continues to rise. The pilot population is graying. More accidents will involve older pilots, but that does not indict age as a cause. Fuel exhaustion (total or switched tanks/pumps), VFR into IFR, overgross and/or out of CG, takeoff with no preflight or with known aircraft defects, lack of type (and increasingly misuse of technology) training — the usual causes still predominate across all ages and “age” or “no current med” are not among those causes.

But put your money where your mouth is on “self-med cert NOT gonna happen”, Rudy. You don’t seem to realize that every pilot self-certs before every flight even with a current medical in her/his pocket. I’d also point out the no-med cert ALREADY EXISTS for gliders, UL, and SP but will play along. If in the next five years a recognizable variant of this certificated private pilot or higher, single engine, fixed gear, ≤180HP, 4 seat, ≤2 aboard, day, VFR, self-cert med is allowed, you donate $50 to MoveOn.org, NAACP, or Planned Parenthood (I’m assuming you’d hate to) while if it isn’t, I donate to whichever group you like…. KKK, American Nazi Party, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries — your call.

Just keepa rantin’ there Fritzbo….and keep writing those ‘epitaphs’ on late aviators like that Cherokee driver…..that should keep your mouth shut, and you busy…..don’t look for the self-cert feature to happen aviation wide bucko….sooo…Next Subject!!!

Fritzmann…..yeh, that’s about two old, bold ‘by the book’ respectable chaps…..where are the not so lucky old dudes that crash and burn?….not current, not healthy (way too old), try to fly one seater homebuilts in their eighties…..rackin’ up quite a score aren’t they? They just gots to know their limitations and give it up…..but they don’t and kill themselves and needlessly others…..Next subject!……

Okay, he’s over 60 in age, whether or not he had a mitigating medical condition……you still think aviators should be left to set their own medical fitness to fly status, with Any rating, without flight surgeon/examiner inputs?….he killed two other people, that’s the reality.

You have an odd definition of reality, rudy. Yes, aviators SHOULD decide on their own fitness. . Your screwup is almost too obvious to bother replying, rudy. Are you a clerk or a pilot? HIS MEDICAL FITNESS WAS NOT A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT. NOT ONE BIT.
It is just as Meg describes = scud running (well except it was not a Cherokee Six). The exact same thing would have happened without the heart condition and with a medical to someone age 20, 30, 40, 90 trying to go from Florida to Wisconsin on a private with no IFR skills, cruising along slowly and tentatively between 1 and 2,000 feet into deteriorating weather AT NIGHT.
Are you a manufacturer/importer/dealer of composite $150,000 SLSA hoping to discourage FAA from permitting the no-medical private that will surely bankrupt you? Hey, look on the bright side: if your aircraft are decent the no medical private people might buy them…once every good used 150, 152, 172, cherokee etc in the USA has been purchased for under $40,000 !

PS Fritz…….A\Lines don’t have 65 year Caps flying as crew, copilots must be younger than six O…..age versus skill deterioration applies to the non-career pilots as well as the salaried ones. That pilot at the very least required a younger, skilled co-pilot!!

What in the Baron Von FOCH are you talking about, Rudy?
“READ the full NTSB”
Don’t talk down to me, Heinrich. I read the entire report. I have been reading and writing accident reports for forty years. There is not a scintilla of evidence or accusation or discussion even in probable cause that his lack of a medical OR his condition had ANY influence on the outcome. Just some clerk’s notes about it… as clerks might have said the aircraft was out of annual but no mechanical issues contributed to this classic SCUD RUNNING accident.
Attempting a one day single pilot XC from tropics to cheeseland in deteriorating weather culminating at night would have been a challenge for a skilled, current IFR stick whether he had Bruce Jenner’s or Dick Cheney’s heart.
And when a VFR-only pilot continues into IMC especially at night and at low altitude he is too often putting the tags on his and any passenger toes. It happens ALL the time and is the single most common fatal accident cause.
So, why are you lying about a connection here between heart and crater and why are you SO determined to ground 617,128 capable pilots who may wish to continue noncommercial day, VFR, modest aircraft flying without bothering with a medical? Just trying to make a buck somehow I’ll wager. Seriously, which SLSA profiteer you work for? Better not be that IMHO disgraced ex-CZAW clown Erwin.
Oh shit, you’re a medical examiner aren’t you? The greedier among those guys HATE sport pilot and are really gonna crap if the EAA no-medical private comes to life (I deliberately do not credit AOPA any more since lying sack “Obama will tax every Cub flight $100” Fuller told FAA to delay it)

With all that you ranted here……K.I.S.S……per what I posted earlier….in dealing with the FAA……negotiate the lenghtier (ie. try 48 months—there’s a money saver for PILOTS) medical certs. first; appease ALL parties initially before making ANY ‘exceptions’. More reality: 617,128 aviators are not Really medically qualified to call it on their motor vehicle licenses. PLUS, 255,525 will demonstrate the ‘honesty’ part of a ‘self-check honor system’. FAA would have relented some time ago were it not for this ‘humanoid quirk’……